Last year I blogged about a set of horrific images of Dubai's labor camps that surfaced on the web. Now Johann Hari uncovers a more gripping and scandalous report on the dark side of Dubai, it's debt problems, slavery, racism and ecological issues:

Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history.

This line from one of the workers interviewed for the article sums it up best:

This is the most terrible place! I hate it! I was here for months before I realised – everything in Dubai is fake. Everything you see. The trees are fake, the workers' contracts are fake, the islands are fake, the smiles are fake – even the water is fake!

The dark side of Dubai [Independent]